Audi on course for year of record sales

German carmaker Audi in May sold more cars than ever before in a single month. The subsidiary of Volkswagen Group aims for double-digit growth throughout 2012 to make it the best-ever year in company history. The number of vehicles sold by Audi jumped to 128,900 in May, making it the company's best-ever sales month, and constituting growth of 13.7 percent compared to the same period a year ago, the German luxury carmaker announced Monday. The total sales figure for the first five months of this year was 600,200 cars, the Ingolstadt-based firm said on Monday, adding that growth of 12.1 percent over that period "surpassed our expectations in all regions." The prime reasons for the brusk growth were sales of Audi's A6 premium model and its Q5 sports utility vehicle (SUV). "For the whole year, we now envisage overall sales to reach 1.4 million vehicles," Audi chief executive Peter Schwarzenbauer said in a statement, upwardly revising the company's 2012 sales outlook. Bucking the trend Audi is defying the downward trend in European car markets, winning new market share on the back of reportedly stable growth in Germany and Britain, where sales jumped 8.1 percent and 10.8 percent respectively. Audi recorded still faster growth in May in Asian markets. South Korea led with an increase of 55.3 percent over last year, to 5,876 vehicles. China followed with an increase of 44.2 percent, to 36,278 cars sold. In China, the locally-built Audi Q5 was the hottest seller - up 90.3 percent year-on-year to 37,438 cars. The world's second-largest economy remained Audi's single-biggest market, as China sales reached 160,562 vehicles in the first five months of 2012, compared with 52,494 cars sold in the United States and 25,307 in Germany.